This application relates to a bifurcated inlet for delivering air into a gas turbine engine.
Gas turbine engines and typically include a compressor compressing air, and delivering it into a combustor. The air is mixed with fuel and ignited. Products of this combustion pass downstream over turbine rotors, driving them to rotate, and in turn rotate the compressor.
Miniature gas turbine engines are known and may be defined as engines supplying 180 lbf. of thrust or less, or may also be defined as being of an axial length less than 15 inches (38.1 centimeters). Such miniature gas turbine engines are utilized to power small aircraft, such as drones or missiles.
Historically, a miniature gas turbine engine is mounted within a fuselage of the aircraft. A single scoop inlet in the fuselage delivered air into a compressor section. More recently, it has been proposed to have a bifurcated inlet, having two scoop inlets through the housing. In the known aircraft, there are two separate flow paths leading from the two scoop inlets, and reaching a duct that combines the flow into a single cylindrical flow before it reaches the engine.
This has sometimes resulted in an unduly long space required on the aircraft for mounting the engine.